1. Make a list, mental or otherwise, of all the homework that is due tomorrow, the rooms that need to be cleaned before clutter renders them entirely unrecognisable, and the meals that want making to prevent your family's starvation.
2. Procrastinate on all of these by writing, until your wrists ache and the items on the above list sound like excellent alternatives to pounding out another word.
3. Procrastinate on writing by scrubbing the bathroom or working algebraic equations, etc. OR, 3b. Keep writing so as to avoid the other jobs. Either way, remember that you're not actually working, you're procrastinating! So all is well; you needn't feel like you're (horrors!) getting something done.
4. Repeat.
[NOTE: if you don't disconnect your Internet before attempting this method, don't blame me for your results. Facebook can destroy even the best of us.]
So that's my method for 2009; it worked last year and the year before. "Worked" is a relative term—it got me 50,000 words, but I did NOT produce a decent story. This year I'm not subscribing to the "let's all write 175 pages of rubbish!" philosophy and plan on tossing the whole word count idea if it's necessary to drag the plot back out of the gutter.
I have rather a love/hate relationship with NaNo—namely, I love it for eleven months of the year and hate it for one. Guilty confession: I actually only bother with it because so many other people do. Nothing like suffering in unison.
So far, the only thing that 2007, 2008, and 2009's stories have in common is that they all begin with the main characters' parents being disposed of. Poor characters. I have far too much fun making them suffer. (And poor parents, who seem to be the Expendable Crewmen of the YA Lit world). Their trials begin in thirteen days. Bon voyage, all!
Go here if you have no idea what this post is talking about. Real Life Friends I Know Are Reading This But Never Comment, I don't suppose I have any chance of talking you into doing this too? No? No. Thought not. :(
When I ever stop laughing long enough to think of something intelligent to say, I'll let you know!
ReplyDelete*cracks up* Love it how most of the things have to do with procrastinating...*snickers* I procrastinate on everything but school. I'm getting in SO much trouble come November. :P
ReplyDelete*is not entirely sure what to say* But hurrah for actually wanting to produce something of quality, that's good. We need to work hard to dispell the theory that "Everything We Write in November Will be Absolute Trash", don't we? It does not have to be that way...
ReplyDeleteMaybe next year we'll have to start a club and not do NaNo, just to be different and original. (Or, pray we get amazing jobs that mean we won't have time. :)
~Krys
Hilarious, Kelsey. ;P That's pretty much my method too . . . I wonder if it'll change at all this year. Hmmm . . .
ReplyDeleteYay for NaNo!
ReplyDelete...Even though I've never done it...
:p
Bravo, Kelsey! Bravo! :)
ReplyDeleteSssh, you're not supposed to give away our secret of avoiding cleaning at all costs by saying we are doing something as important as writing the word "and" fifty thousand times.
ReplyDeleteOh Aly.
ReplyDelete*recovers from the choking fit brought on by rofl*
In between dying laughing, I rejoiced in the fact that you're using NaNo to finish DOA - in other words, I get to read it sooner!
Krys - I know, it flies in the face of all that is ISFJ. Don't mind me... ;) Amazing Jobs sound heavenly, though I'd settle for a not-so-amazing one too at the moment! Actually next Nov. I'll probably be away at school so I might have no choice but to join this club. :P It would be sad to intentionally break tradition though...what a quandary.
ReplyDeleteRebecca - but that will change in nine days, no? Good luck!
Nina - yeah, you'd be waiting twenty years at this rate. I am a disgrace to the literary world. Where would the world be without NaNo, eh?
Hehe...sounds like tons of fun. ;-) I'm all for NaNoWriMo, even if I never do it. :-P (I've got two of my sisters to sign up for it. :-D)
ReplyDeleteAly: Ah, yes, tis terrible to break tradition. *gasps and completely over reacts* Well, not really. But of course, since you are more of a writer than I, I suppose you'd want to do it...or something. *secretly wishes that an amazing job would come up THIS year that would take all her time up* Yes indeed. Hmm.
ReplyDelete*waves an ISxJ banner proudly* (these days some of the personality tests tell me I'm an ISTJ, so I can't be sure anymore... ;) )
Hey Kelsey! Your blogs needs a little procrastination! ;)
ReplyDeleteHaha I know, it's dreadful. I have a heap of blog post ideas but I have so much to do that I feel guilty every time I sit down to type one up.
ReplyDeleteSo you'll all have to somehow survive without my genius for a while. *gasp* (yeah right ;) )
Hurrah for procrastinating in November. :D
ReplyDelete